There’s one. Oh, there’s another, and another
and… holy cow they’re everywhere! Those little soccer balls
hanging from rear view mirrors invaded our town last weekend and they
brought with them a swarm of football (sorry, soccer) players. Sure you
can say seventy soccer teams are playing in town, but you simply can’t
appreciate what that looks like until you actually see it. Much like you
simply can’t appreciate what 800 mountain bike riders looks like
until you witness the beginning of the Test of Metal. Both of them the
biggest sporting event revenue boosts in town. Of course this years smashing
soccer success was all the more sweeter coinciding with the years first
‘take off your top and soak up the sun’ weekend.

Now that is a market Squamish must expand on as it infuses literally millions
of dollars into local pockets. We should be thinking of ways to absolutely
pack Squamish’s big event calendar. I imagine this would be a good
idea to work through the Adventure Center. Ahh but no, for now we’ll
only be focusing on how all the money was spent because the Adventure
Center was… wait for it… over budget! Shock, Gasp, Horror!
Of course it was, everything is. Every huge project that is ever built
comes in over budget. The RCMP building, the Adventure Center, the Olympics,
coming in over budget is what big projects do. I don’t like it,
and if funny business happened we should definitely know about it, but
come on, when is it time to look ahead?

To his credit, councilor Mike Jensen is only keeping
his loudest campaign promise, and that was to count every penny that went
to the Adventure Center. Mike is very good at that, and Squamish is lucky
to have him behind the calculator. I only hope that after this one, he
will use his powers to focus on what could be done instead of what has
been done. And please, can we never, ever again mention the RCMP building?
That building is nothing short of an architectural abortion and you just
know someone was laughing all the way to the bank. It’s over, it’s
ugly, and it’s ours. It would be petty and unproductive to re-hash
what many consider an obvious mistake.

Yet here we are awaiting the audit on the half finished Adventure Center.
When the detailed numbers are released, is anything going to change? Everyone
knows it was built fast with outside money help and it came in way over
budget. Those who are already mad at the Adventure Center and those responsible,
will stay mad (possibly even elevate to angry). Likewise, those who have
seen their tax dollars spent on worse things and think it’s a nice
building with potential, will also continue to do so. After all that we’ll
be right where we are now, all agreeing it’s a landmark building
but no closer to using it to it’s full potential.